To My Fellow Graduates . . .

I had the occasion recently to attend a high school graduation.  I was there to see a group of young people I had had the pleasure of working with these past five years age instantly before my eyes.  It is to these fine people and grads around the world that this is addressed.

My own matriculation occurred some 21 years ago.  It was a proud seminal moment in my life, a crowning achievement, and the culmination of 13 years of schooling.  The thing is, I don't remember much of it.  The sands of time have shifted over the years, obscuring the details, dulling the memories.  To be honest, I'm not even sure that the remembrances I do have weren't aided by the photographs scanned after the fact.  The memories of the momentousness of my big night have faded into a recollection among others of things past.

The reason I mention all of this - aside from being a massive prick - is to actually give you some hope, believe it or not.  Right now, and over the past few weeks, amid the elation and relief, have likely been some tears and even a few fears (that would make an awesome band name).  While it's true that a huge and defining part of your lives is coming to an end, the rest of it is just starting.

Oh.  So that part's also causing you to shit the proverbial bed?

Well, what if I told you that a part of the rest of your life is just starting?  Up to this point in your life, you've likely been led to believe that your life is divided into three parts --> before high school, during high school, and after high school.  Right now the after high school part is looking pretty big huh?  Well it is.  It's freaking huge.  There's just so much to do.  The truth is, however, that the best part of living life is figuring out how you want to live it.  The trick is, you can't figure out what you want to do with it unless you go out and do.

Go.  Do.  Some of my newly minted friends may find that familiar.

I've told every class and every student I've ever taught and every actor I've ever directed that I'd rather see them fail spectacularly than succeed mediocrely.  What I mean is that in life, as in scene-work, you need to launch yourself at your goal with 100% of your efforts.  Without complete commitment, you will never succeed completely.

Success through failure.

Failure in life is unavoidable.  Lack of commitment is entirely avoidable.  If you want to be an actor, failure is 90% of your career, but it is also present in every other profession and in life.  If you don't fail, you will never understand what it takes to succeed.

Be passionate.

Don't do anything halfway.  Give everything your all.  I don't care what you want to achieve in life, but allowing your passions to guide you is a great way to lead a happy life.  The old adage reads: "Do what you love and you'll never work a day in your life."  But it runs deeper than that.  Show yourself to be passionate in every aspect of your life and you'll never have to wonder "what if?"

Lastly, realize that in all of this you only have one life.  Don't let anyone take that away from you by making if less than it deserves to be.  Don't allow others to dictate the terms of your life.  Don't waste the finite preciousness of your existence.  Be good to others.  Be honorable.  Be moral.  You are the sum of your experiences.  The better the experiences, the better the sum.  Some days those experiences are unmatched - yes, para-sailing with the Dalai Lama in the AM and dinner and strip Yahtzee with Carrie Underwood in the PM was pretty amazing, but so too was that solitary latte when you fell in love with Hemingway, or that time you laughed for an hour over some inane joke with a friend.

You're too young to get this yet, but life hurtles past you at break-neck speed.  Don't waste any of it needlessly beating yourself up or not following your dreams.  Jump in with both feet and squeeze every last drop of awesome out of it.  Don't let anything get you down longer than you have to.  Love yourself.  Be in love.  Be proud of yourself.  Your families are proud of you.  I'm proud of you.

Do great things.

Dear Mark Zuckerberg

Dear Mark Zuckerberg,

I think you're great.  For real - you were amazing in Zombieland!  But if I may be so bold as to suggest that your recent changes to Facebook, while brilliant for ADD afflicted chihuahuas, doesn't really jive too well with your more seasoned users - you know, those of us with a firm and troublesome grasp of linear time and in possession of one set of eyeballs.

Now, while I understand that Justin Timberlake convincingly argued the benefits of expansion in that wicked restaurant scene, I would also like to point out that that character was also later arrested for possessing drugs that may or may not lend themselves to wanting 150 different things to look at in one's newsfeed while meticulously cleaning one's home at three in the morning because one's waiting for a cake to bake because one suddenly became hungry in the wee hours after an all night pool party.  Just saying . . .

I'd also like to point out that while you displayed razor sharp intuition picking apart the Winklevoss twins' lawyer in that boardroom scene, that doesn't mean you have a profound grasp on what I'd like to see in my newsfeed within a newsfeed (hint: It's not what friends are "liking" on other friends' statii).  Algorithms are sexy and stuff, but they can't be used to read my mind.  Only my wife can do that - and even then it's mainly only concerning whether or not I had that last cookie, or whether or not that girl that just walked past was cute or not.

Don't get me wrong Mark, I like your Facebook thing.  It's free, it's a good networking tool, and it lets us all creep our exes' profiles to see if they wound up better or worse off after dumping us.  The thing is most people like our social networking the way we like our relationships - initially exciting, eventually dependable, and with no huge sweeping changes that leave us confused and scared and trying desperately to figure out why it keeps bringing up stuff from last week in the middle of a conversation about Farmville.

Thanks for your time,
Richard

P.S. I hope they make Adventureland 2

The Show on richardiancox.com and the Changes To Come . . . Maybe.

Honest to goodness!  I keep promising to keep up with this blog and well . . . I don't.  Don't get me wrong, I love this blog.  It's my voice to the outside.  In many ways, it's my real voice.  It's that guy beyond the humor and the (alleged) witty (or is that witless) status updates on Facebook and Twitter.  It's the guy who's up for a fight to defend what he thinks is important and criticize what he thinks isn't.

On Facebook it's a funny old thing - you want the people who follow, or rather friend, you to like you.  Perhaps more accurately you want them to like the product that is you.  Let's be honest - I don't really have 1225 friends - I have 1225 "friends".  I like them, hopefully they like me, but I don't know them, and they don't know me.  I have long been contemplating setting up a "Like" page and asking people to gravitate in that direction so that I can somewhat reclaim my Facebook page as my personal space, but I worry that such a request will smack of ego.  The truth is that there isn't much that's personal about my current page.  The people I talk to on a daily or weekly or monthly basis - you know, the friends I actually know - don't post on my wall or comment because they'll wind up with 50 emails (to be fair 49 of them are mine)!  Again, don't take this the wrong way - I love that people out there care enough about me without having met me to want to take a personal interest in my life, but it is a surreal thing to have folks posting on my wall and then chatting amongst themselves as though it's a public page.  Of course, I did bring this on myself - I did open myself up, and many people frankly don't know that this is a personal page.  The tricky bit is that I do want to share personal elements on my page with friends and family, but I don't want to open up any more to folks I don't really know - you know? :)

This blog lets me say what I really think about the world without a flame war ensuing, because somehow commenting on this seems to take more time and the format somehow asks for an opinion rather than a snippy remark quickly jotted down.  A blog is something to seek out and not just an item in a never ending news-feed to "Like" or ignore.  As a result, I have been yearning to use my voice more (my inside voice rather than my literal one).  I do post the occasional link to things I believe in or can't believe.  I suppose I do this because I think people should see what's outside their window and also because I like healthy debate.  Of course, there isn't really much that's healthy about debate on Facebook is there?  I honestly couldn't tell you why.  Perhaps because it seems so quick.  As we scroll down the news-feed, it all flies by and maybe we forget the verbal middle finger we just extended as quickly as we forget it in the car from which we flip birds of varying degrees.

I'm a feisty, scrappy little guy, and I like to tell it how I think it is.  Frankly I think it's been driving me crazy to suppress my opinions for the sake of being palatable to all.  I certainly don't think I am the alpha and the omega of opinions, and am fully aware that mine is no more valid than those on either side of me (unless they're wrong).  Yet sometimes I need to stand on that soapbox and point out what I think is hypocrisy, yadda yadda yadda . . .

So all this drivel brings me to The Show on richardiancox.com - that brilliant sophomoric podcast brought to you semi-weekly, monthly, or is that annually by the brain trust that is myself and Sharon Alexander.  I feel that The Show should have a little more spice in the veins of Jon Stewart, Bill Maher, and Kermit the Frog.  I don't always want to play nice.  I mean I am nice, but I want to stir things up a bit.  Besides, good comedy so rarely comes from "nice" don't you think?  I don't want to alienate anyone, and I hope that everyone comes along for the ride, even if just to risk opening your eyes to another world without actually going over.

I don't know when or if these changes will take place, just taking that first step of putting it out there.  I think that generally the loudest among us get the most attention.  I don't want to be loud, but sometimes I want to push back at those who are getting too loud.  There seems to be more and more hate out there these days.  It's on our news channels, on our social networks, it's out of the mouths of the ignorant.  I would like to do more to point out that ugliness and invite people to hold a mirror to it.  Maybe The Show can be my little way to disarm this nastiness by making fun of it.  If you feel like it, have a listen and laugh along.